The inventor herein is a musician. He initially developed a vibrato mounting bracket for his guitar after he became aware that he would substantially devalue his guitar if he mounted a vibrato unit on the guitar. Drilling holes and turning screws into his $40,000 guitar to mount the vibrato unit directly thereon, would devalue the guitar by $6000. Accordingly, he developed a mounting bracket which carried the vibrato unit. The mounting bracket was attached to his guitar solely by the lower shoulder strap connection screw, as well as at a top of the bracket by the outer two string stop bar screw attachments on the guitar. He observed that his vibrato bracket guitar sounded substantially better than vibrato guitars to which the vibrato unit was directly mounted thereon.
The inventor attributed this improved sound quality and volume to the clamping effect which the vibrato unit had on the front face of the guitar. He subsequently further developed his mounting bracket, each bracket further reducing upward pulling and downward pressure on the front face of the guitar. The conventional vibrato, directly attached to the front face of the guitar, draws the highly tensioned strings of the guitar down thereby centrally lifting the front face of the guitar up, effectively dampening vibration on the central and entire front face of the resonating sound box of the guitar. The inventor's system resists string pull from the bottom of the guitar. Additionally the angle on which the strings are pulled down from the bridge of the guitar has also been refined so that the direction of string pull is towards a point above the bottom of the front face of the guitar. The downward component of force on the front face of the guitar is thereby even further reduced. With the use of this type of a mounting a bracket smaller inexpensive guitars have a sound box which produces substantially more resonance, depth and volume than the most expensive guitars having a vibrato directly unit directly mounted thereon. The sound volume is generally doubled with the use of the bracket. Sound sustain, the duration of vibration is also substantially increased. Sound attack, the speed which sound resonates from the guitar was also speeded. Improving sound attack, particularly in concert performances, reduces confusion caused by a multi-second delay. The quality and depth of sound with the herein disclosed vibrato mounting system on even an inexpensive guitar far surpasses anything available with any conventionally mounted vibrato unit on even the most expensive guitar.
Conventional vibrato units are most preferably mounted down, rearwardly as far as possible on the guitar, sacrificing operability, but thereby reducing downward clamping force on the face of the guitar. With the unit disclosed herein, the vibrato unit can be shifted upwardly on the guitar, allowing the vibrato arm to be more easily grasped and operated.